“She was too pretty, too carefree, too easy.” This is the only explanation offered by esteemed husband, father, and citizen Grégoire Duval (Bernard Blier) for strangling a topless sunbather near a lake in Georges Lautner’s Le septième juré (US: The Seventh Juror), a masterful study of applied ethics. While Duval’s criminal motivation remains unclear, his guilt mounts after the clouds of passion clear, and especially after law enforcement and his peers down at the club aim their suspicion at the victim’s boyfriend Sylvain Sautral (Jacques Riberolles) who’s known for being violent. When Duval is selected as a juror for Sautral’s trial, his moral and psychological conflict reaches a Dostoyevskian fever pitch, skillfully concealed behind Blier’s dispassionate façade. Leading up to one of the most beautifully bleak endings in the late noir period (contrasted with children singing “Silent Night” over loudspeakers), Lautner deftly exposes the town’s total resistance to Duval’s possible guilt; his peers, his family, even the authorities will imagine any scenario other than that. While traditional noir visual expressionism is utilized sparingly, a tavern conversation between Duval and his son is stunningly designed so that the drunk girl dancing behind them appears as a Tinkerbell-like reflection in Duval’s wine glass. Also notable are the auricular flourishes, like the melodic roar of classical music that accompanies the extended opening sequence or the oppressive church bells that pull Duval’s mind into the confessional.